


Five Things Vala Wishes She'd Never Learned

by ivorygates



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-05
Updated: 2013-08-05
Packaged: 2017-12-22 13:25:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/913711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivorygates/pseuds/ivorygates
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I only stumbled across this again when <span class="ljuser"></span><a href="http://princessofgeeks.dreamwidth.org/profile"><img/></a><a href="http://princessofgeeks.dreamwidth.org/"><b>princessofgeeks</b></a> happened to comment on it, and I was all "Oh, wait -- what?" because it had completely slipped my mind that I'd written it.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Five Things Vala Wishes She'd Never Learned

**Author's Note:**

> I only stumbled across this again when [](http://princessofgeeks.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**princessofgeeks**](http://princessofgeeks.dreamwidth.org/) happened to comment on it, and I was all "Oh, wait -- what?" because it had completely slipped my mind that I'd written it.

1\. She wishes she'd never learned that love dies. She remembers having two parents. She remembers being loved. She'd thought it was a fact of life. Then her mother died. And her father ... stopped loving her, and Vala wonders, actually, if he ever did, or if she'd just been a fool. She promises herself she won't be that foolish ever again. (Adria was a bitch; her stepmother had never loved her, but then, Vala had never expected her to.)

2\. She wishes she'd never learned what it was like to be a prisoner in her own body. She remembers the crunching sound as Qetesh bit into her spine. She'd had a moment to think: _this isn't so bad_ \- not being a stranger to pain by then - as Qetesh slid into her, and then she'd felt herself pushed aside, farther and farther away. It was like drowning.

In blood.

3\. She wishes she'd never learned how truly stupid people were. Watching what Qetesh did (a minor _Goa'uld_ 'Lord' - once a fertility goddess on Earth, actually - but even a minor Goa'uld had a minor fleet and a couple of planets to her name) was instructive. Not the atrocities - she became numb to those after a while - but the fact that people generally made their own problems. They confessed things Qetesh had no way of knowing about. They made simple and obvious mistakes knowing the punishment for mistakes was death. Mostly, they simply didn't _pay attention_. If they were going to do things like that in the service of a psychotic tyrant, Vala really didn't know how they could possibly manage in daily life.

4\. She wishes she'd never learned how truly stupid people were (part II). When the Tok'ra freed her from Qetesh, she went home. She wasn't expecting a festival of welcome, but she _did_ expect them to realize that Qetesh was gone and she wasn't a _Goa'uld_ any more. All she'd wanted was her life back, and a chance to forget everything Qetesh had done with her body, her face, and her hands.

She didn't get those things. Qetesh was dead, but Vala would be remembered and reviled for everything Qetesh had done.

Fortunately she was able to get back to the Stargate. And she still knew where to steal a spaceship.

5\. She wishes she'd never learned how to love again. They all think it was Qetesh who ruined her life, and it wasn't, really, at least in the sense that (really) her life was already ruined before Qetesh came along. They think Daniel is the one who changed her, softened her, made her see the good in people again. That would be simple and comforting, as Daniel is good and kind, but it isn't true. When she held her daughter - her mad, murderous, _alien_ daughter - in her arms for the first time, that was when her life changed. She fell in love, and her heart broke.

From Adria to Adria, her life is a circle.

#


End file.
